Russian Space Module Set for Launch Aboard the Shuttle Atlantis

by Justin Ray | March 29, 2010 04:52pm ET

Inside a building at Port Canaveral where commercial
American space habitation modules once readied for flight, a hundred Russian
specialists have taken up residence to prepare their hardware for launch to the
International Space Station.

The Mini Research Module 1, dubbed Rassvet or
"dawn," will be ferried to the orbiting outpost aboard the space
shuttle Atlantis during a construction mission planned for liftoff May 14 from
Kennedy Space Center.

NASA is hauling up the 18,000-pound module in Atlantis'
payload bay as part of international bartering agreement. The shuttle crew will
oversee Rassvet's installation onto the station's Zarya control module to serve
as a new docking port for visiting Russian
vehicles.

Taking advantage of the Rassvet's interior volume, NASA has
packed 3,000 pounds of equipment, spare parts, food and provisions in the
module for trucking to the station. And an airlock and radiator are
piggybacking on the side of Rassvet for eventual relocation to the
Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module when it is launched to the station by Russia in
2012.

The Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia built Rassvet and
shipped the module to Florida last December for final assembly and checkout
procedures. The company's team of workers deployed to the U.S. have used the
old Spacehab
facility south of Kennedy Space Center to do the pre-flight activities.

Spacehab modules flew on numerous shuttle missions to house
a variety of experiments and also truck cargo to orbit. The commercial modules
were connected to the shuttle crew cabin by tunnels, affording a shirt-sleeve
environment for the astronauts to work in during stand-alone science missions,
plus trips to the Russian space station Mir and the International Space
Station. NASA last used a Spacehab module in 2007 and has no future plans to
fly them on the remaining shuttle flights.

Rassvet will be moved to NASA's Space Station Processing
Facility on April 2 where final touches occur before the module is placed into
the shuttle payload transporter on April 5.

Sharing the ride in Atlantis' cargo bay is a reusable pallet
structure loaded with fresh batteries for the station's oldest power truss, a
new Ku-band communications antenna and an additional handling device for the
Dextre robot. The 8,150-pound pallet has been processed at the Spacehab
building too and heads over to KSC to join Rassvet in the payload canister on
April 7.

That canister, which is shaped like the shuttle's bay, will
be rotated to stand up vertically and then delivered to launch pad 39A on April
15. Atlantis rolls out to the pad on April 20 to receive its payloads and get
ready to fly a few weeks later.

Here is a collection of photos of Rassvet and the cargo
pallet taken at Spacehab during a press viewing opportunity held on Thursday,
March 25.